


Stand By You

by Zelos



Series: Administrivia [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Cybercrimes, Gen, High School, Media Campaign, Minor Character(s), POV Minor Character, POV Outsider, Public Relations, Publicity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 02:16:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11796357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zelos/pseuds/Zelos
Summary: “We miss you, Spider-Man.”The world will be all right with kids like these.





	Stand By You

Ken stared steadily at the boys in front of him. His office was too small to fit in three chairs, so they were standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a miserable, sullen line, eyes fixed on the floor. “Explain yourselves.”

Silence.

“I didn’t think any of you would fight at school.” Ken swept his gaze across the trio, stopping at the last. “Will you be fighting at your internship too, Ned?”

Ned raised his chin belligerently, mouth tight and eyes snapping. Ken blinked, taken aback. _Belligerent_ was one of the last words he’d ever use to describe Ned.

A very, very long silence.

Ken was just on the verge of saying something even harsher when Flash shifted, voice thick—or maybe that was his fat lip. “It’s my fault.”

Beside Flash, Peter stiffened, fists clenched tight against his sides. On Peter’s other side, Ned shot Flash a murderous look.

Ken raised an eyebrow and waited. Flash fidgeted guiltily where he stood. Evidently that was all he could offer in front of an audience.

“Peter, Ned, go to the waiting area.” Neither moved. “Go.”

With a mutinous look, Ned turned to leave, tugging briefly at Peter’s sleeve. Peter followed his friend out, eyes never leaving the floor. The door closed.

Ken nodded sharply at the chair. “Sit.” He clipped the word.

Flash sat. He squirmed in his seat, growing more and more uncomfortable under the scrutiny. When he finally cracked, the halting words sounded like they’d been dragged out of him with a fishing line. “I didn’t mean it.”

“Mean what?”

“I had…I had a bad day. They were making fun of me for having to pay back my dad for his car.” Flash swallowed, face scarlet. “I got mad, and…I said…said at least I had a dad.”

Ken drew a sharp breath. “ _Flash._ ”

“I didn’t mean it! And…I didn’t know it was, it was Peter’s uncle’s…anniversary…”

“Why does that matter?” Ken’s voice was glacial; Flash flinched. “In what world is something like that okay?”

Flash huddled further into himself, teeth worrying at his swollen lip. He was lucky that was all he got. Had it been Peter throwing the punch, Flash would’ve gone through a wall.

“You have detention for the rest of the week and an appointment—appointments—with the school counsellor. I will call your parents and send a letter home with you regarding your ongoing harassment of another student.” Ken stared the boy down, every word flinty. “And you owe Peter a profuse apology. I haven’t forgotten your nickname for him.”

Flash cringed but nodded.

He should probably give his usual lecture, but he wasn’t sure he could be detached about it. A single thoughtless remark (though if it drove Ned to physical scuffles it probably wasn’t just _one_ remark) shouldn’t incite his anger. He was supposed to be fair. He has lost all claim at objectivity.

One day he’d pay a price for his choices. The question was, whose finger would be on the trigger?

“Get back to class. And send Peter and Ned in.” Flash skulked out, head down and shoulders hunched.

Ken’s cell buzzed. He glanced over at the notifications lighting up his news feed. Jameson was having a field day with his articles, each one more inflammatory than the last. Spider-Man wasn’t around to defend himself. _Peter_ didn’t even defend himself.

He’d need to discipline Ned too, seeing as Ned had thrown the punch. And Peter…

Ken picked up the phone. “Janet, can you create a homework package for Peter Parker for the next two weeks?”

 

Ken looked at the woman in front of him and managed a wan smile. “Mrs Parker. I wish I had called under better circumstances.”

May Parker blinked warily behind her glasses. She looked worn and exhausted and maybe a little scared, and god, Ken could relate. She had sounded bleary on the phone, like Ken had roused her from sleep.

Peter had said she was a nurse on graveyard shift. Ken supposed a guardian who was well-versed in medicine was extremely useful in light of Peter’s extra-curricular activities. He wondered if May’s career choice was coincidence or design.

“Can’t be helped,” and there was a crispness to her words despite the weariness in her face. “Fighting at school, was it? Is he suspended?”

“No. But I am suggesting he take a leave of absence.”

May frowned. “You just said he isn’t suspended.”

“He’s not. Especially since, from my understanding, he was trying to break up the fight. That said…” Ken slid the homework packet Janet had assembled across his desk. “I…understand it’s a pretty difficult time right now.”

May stiffened, something raw flickering across her face.

Ken winced inwardly. Using the dead as an excuse made him a world-class jackass…but for all he knew maybe it was playing into Peter’s disposition somewhat. Spider-Man’s first appearance had been shortly after Ben Parker’s death. It was the best excuse he has, either way.

“I believe in giving students—people—leeway for personal emergencies. And Peter is an excellent student; I’m confident he’ll be able to keep up. Maybe it’s time for him to take a personal break.” Ken paused for a beat, debating his words, before venturing, “I heard he’s taking a break from his internship too.”

May tilted her head, steely eyes on his. “Peter mentioned you’d been following up with him about his internship.”

The corner of his mouth curled ruefully. “Yes. The details of his internship had been decided…rather hastily.”

“Yeah.” May grimaced, a myriad of emotions across her face. “Kids’ll make their own decisions whether you want them to or not.”

“They are capable of more than we give them credit for,” Ken agreed carefully. “But they’re still minors. They still need adults.” Idealism alone wasn’t enough to keep anyone going, especially not with people like Jameson shouting you down.

Peter had May for support; the reverse probably didn’t work as well. He wondered if Peter or May (maybe especially May) would take Hogan up on his offer for counselling. Wounded people with anemic support systems could only struggle for so long.

One corner of her mouth quirked sardonically, not quite a smile. “You don’t say.”

Ken gestured expansively toward his office, his school, and himself, something equally wry on his face. “I’m just the principal. I don’t get to tell any of these kids what to do beyond these walls. Sometimes not even within them.”

Her expression was brittle. “You say that like they listen.”

“I see a lot of kids. They listen. They may not agree, but they hear the words. Usually.” He shrugged helplessly. “I’m doing my best.” Maybe it wasn’t the best, but it was his best.

May smiled, small and terrified and impossibly proud. “That’s all any of us can do, isn’t it?” She reached for the homework packet, leafing through the pages.

Logistics was a safer topic. “I’ve given Peter two weeks off. If that’s not enough, call in and we can make other arrangements.” He hesitated, then added quietly, “take him home. Let him rest. He’s earned his break. He needs his friends and family right now.”

She shook his hand. She has a very strong grip. “Thank you.”

“Take care,” and that went for all of them, too.

 

Confiscated alcohol, job applicants, students’ progressive discipline, broken equipment…some days it seemed like the phone would never stop ringing. Ken had scarcely dropped his phone back into its cradle before it started ringing _again_.

He glanced at the caller ID and barely bit back a sigh. “Hi David.”

“Ken.” David Lam’s voice was terse despite the exaggerated drawl. “I just had a _very interesting_ call with Ned Leeds’ supervisor at Stark Industries.”

Ken sat up. “About?”

“Ned was preparing a rather large-scale cyberattack on the Daily Bugle.”

“…he _what_.” It was not a question. It was a statement of weary despair.

“Apparently he was very, very incensed at the smear campaign the Bugle has been running on Spider-Man.” David enunciated each word carefully, voice fraying. “Luckily his supervisor pulled the plug before the DDOS attack could launch.”

Ken buried his face into his free hand. “Dear lord.” Not that Jameson didn’t deserve it, but…this was not how to handle these problems. “He got walked out? Did anyone call his parents?”

“Actually, no, which was why I wanted to talk to you first. Ned’s supervisor was pretty pissed—” David’s tone indicated that this was the biggest understatement of the century “—but Tony Stark wandered in and said something about how he’d been tempted to do the same a few times—”

“Of course he did,” Ken muttered. This was Tony fucking Stark. The man flipped the Senate off as an afternoon past time.

“—and to chalk it up to a learning experience. There was something about how he egged Ned on. Point is, they’re not canning the kid. Question is, should _I_ can him?”

Three days. It’d only been _three days_. Ned shouldn’t even know where the bathroom was yet. “Do you want to keep him?”

“Well, Stark Industries internships don’t grow on trees, and given…everything else going on with him…” David sounded uncomfortable and vaguely guilty, like firing Ned would be on his conscience. “If they’re willing to keep him, I’m fine with just ripping him a new one. I mean, if you’re okay with it.”

“I’m fine with that. So long as Tony Stark does not get within a hundred feet of Ned again, that is.” Though Ken has the feeling this was all Ned. These kids would be the death of him.

“I am not going to tell _Tony freaking Stark_ he’s forbidden from interacting with a _Stark Industries_ intern.”

Ken sighed and didn’t press the point. “When you finish yelling at Ned, tell him if he cares so much about Spider-Man, he’d be better served with something actually _legal_. Like, a publicity campaign or something. As long as his supervisor agrees, anyway.”

David snorted. “I thought he was more computer science than marketing.”

“Extra credit? Joint project? Cross training? Research on the infrastructure behind social media? He can make it work if he cares enough. No one has ever changed public opinion with cybercrime.” Or if they had, they probably weren’t people worth listening to.

They talked for a few more minutes. Most of it was David rehearsing his speech to Ned. There was a fine balance to strike between putting the fear of god into him and traumatizing him. Though with Tony Stark behind him, maybe even David’s best threats would be futile.

As soon as Ken hung up the line he set his office phone to DND and speed-dialed Hogan. “ _What the hell._ ” Words failed him and he spluttered for a few moments before finally finishing with, “ _three days!_ ”

“Don’t worry about it,” Hogan said breezily. “Connor is just pissed he wasn’t brave enough to do it first. We’re a pretty pro-superhero bunch around here.”

“Please don’t encourage him. I’m trying to produce respectable members of society here.” Ken rubbed wearily at his temple. “I told him to focus on a publicity campaign. Better results and actually legal.”

“Huh.” Hogan sounded thoughtful. “That’s a good idea.”

“Yeah, so long as Stark doesn’t _egg him on_ some more.” Tony Stark and good publicity were like two ships passing each other in the night. “Is his supervisor any good with media? Would anyone else take this on?” If Ned didn’t get the _support Spider-Man_ itch out of his system soon, his next actions didn’t bear thinking about.

Hogan was giving him a _look_ , Ken could feel it. “Do you know how many years I’ve been cleaning up after Tony Stark?”

This time Ken did laugh.

 

A week and a half flew by. Ken spent the relative peace catching up on his work and failing to catch up on his sleep. He kept waking up in the middle of the night convinced he had missed the apocalypse by accident. Life with superheroes wasn’t supposed to be this quiet.

He’d been making dinner when Hogan finally called (Hogan’s ringtone was the Dracula theme; it captured the sense of foreboding doom nicely). Ken was across his apartment before he remembered moving. “Hello?”

“Hey.” Hogan sounded suspiciously cheerful. “Do a Google search on Spider-Man.”

“Why?”

“Humour me.”

Bemused, Ken trudged over his laptop.

The first search result was simply titled _Making A Difference_. The description was _People of New York_. The domain was _GreatPowerGreatResponsibility.com_.

Ken clicked the link.

A video started playing (despite having disabled autoplay). Ken’s heart was instantly in his throat: the Washington Monument. A flash of purple light, a blue and red blur scaling the wall. Spider-Man holding the elevator, arms straining. Screaming kids scrambling out of steel doors, terror painted in greyscale.

“Were you scared?” The camera changed to Cindy Moon, dressed in jeans and a purple tee. Sunshine spilled over her face. Betty Brant held the microphone as easily as if she’d been born with it.

“Yeah, of course.” Cindy tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Even now, it’s surreal. I almost died. I barely remember any of it. Not how I got outside, or what Spider-Man sounded like. I didn’t even say thank you.”

“I didn’t either,” Charles Murphy added beside her. “Better late than never, I hope. If you see this, Spider-Man, thank you. Thank you very, very much.”

The video cut to a montage. Spider-Man swinging around the city. Spider-Man retrieving wayward balloons, lost kittens, an orange that had rolled away from someone’s lunch (at least he hadn’t webbed the orange). Jason and Betty interviewing more decathlon students. Spider-Man carrying a broken bicycle for an exhausted student. Stark’s ubiquitous cameras came in handy.

For a moment Ken was disconcerted at just how much information Stark has at his fingertips. The captured footage had everything from helping a family carry groceries to pushing a car out of a ditch. But privacy concerns aside, the point was made—different faces, different expressions, the same message over and over: thank you, thank you, thank you.

The video ended on a sketch of Spider-Man covered with puppies. The initials _MJ_ accented a wagging tail.

Ken took a deep breath. “At least you didn’t include the beached plane.” He didn’t mean to sound quite so disparaging. He was, despite himself, genuinely impressed.

“We thought that’d be a little too on the nose,” Hogan admitted. “But Liz gave Ned her blessing.” A rustle in the background. “This is the first result for any search related to Spider-Man.”

“Huh.” Ken tapped a few keys. “Why is it showing up when I search for cats?”

“Spider-Man rescues cats?”

“That is a very generous interpretation of ‘related’.” Ken ran a hand through his hair. “What did you do, hack all the search engines?”

“There’s some code embedded in the site that obfuscates the indexing and ranking algorithms of the major search engines. The engines will retrieve that video as relevant to a bizarre number of searches and keywords. Add in some traffic query manipulation, the popularity of the Stark Industries domain, and comparative traffic between engines…presto, you have eyeballs.”

“Is that even legal?” Ken didn’t know why he bothered asking that to any of these people, he really didn’t.

“We didn’t access or change anything not ours. Their algorithms suck.” Hogan sounded far too smug.

“He is an _intern_. I swear to god, if—”

“Oh, calm down,” Hogan interrupted dismissively. “Tony and Ned are writing patches to send to Google/Microsoft/etc for free. _That_ _’s_ the actual internship, the video is just…cross training. Extra credit. Cuteness to brighten people’s days.”

Hogan’s tone sounded entirely too close to Stark’s. Ken wasn’t sure if Stark was rubbing off on his employee or Hogan just relished having the upper hand for once. Which reminded him… “Spider-Man is unregistered. Can Stark Industries…promote Spider-Man?”

Hogan was silent for a long moment. “You let Tony worry about that,” he finally replied, prior nonchalance gone.

Ken bit his lip. His esteem of Tony Stark increased by several notches. “Are you—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Hogan said quickly. “We’ve got it handled.”

 _Yeah. Right._ The smell of burnt food wafted through the air. Ken winced. “I gotta go. Good luck.”

“Yeah. You too.”

 

Apparently Stark decided that hijacking the results of every search engine wasn’t enough publicity. To add insult to injury, he held a press conference in which he detailed the ostensible purpose of the video (exposing poor code, not cheering on Spider-Man) and the pending fix. The words “wow, you guys suck” were used. Repeatedly.

When asked how he justified flamboyantly exploiting weaknesses in code to increase his domain’s traffic, Stark retorted, “I’m not even in the search engine business! This isn’t our focus, but I still cracked this. Gaming Google and the rest is a dark road we don’t want people going down. Imagine what criminals can get away with. I’m doing a public service, here.”

“And the promotion of an unregistered vigilante?” someone called out.

“Dramatic irony,” Stark said without missing a beat. At least he was honest.

If Ned’s video was viral before, it was positively meteoric now. Rumour has it even Stark Industries’ servers felt the strain. The view counter at the bottom of the page has enough commas that the only thing that exceeded it might be Stark’s net worth.

All the kids who’d participated in Ned’s video became overnight celebrities at school. Jason and Betty had bright careers as TV anchors in front of them. Ken would not be surprised if Stark Industries’ media department reached out to them for internships too (wasn’t that a horrifying thought? The kids would probably sell their souls for the chance, too).

Surprisingly, Flash was the most vocal supporter of the video (which was saying something, given the fanatical support from the entire decathlon team). The kid was literally evangelizing in the hallways.

Ken had to tell him to tone it down when his soapboxing between classes was making other students late: “Why are you so enthused about this? You told me Spider-Man had wrecked your father’s car, and you have to pay it back.”

“Yeah, that part sucked. But he saved the city because he caught up to the Vulture in time.” Flash’s expression flickered slightly as he remembered who the Vulture was, but he soldiered on, “so I indirectly helped him save the city!”

It was hard to argue with that. Then again, Ken knew better than to try.

“That video is the highest trending post on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter,” David informed him. He has taken to giving Ken daily updates about Ned’s internship achievements. “It has more views than the top five most-viewed YouTube videos added together.”

“I see.” Ken has mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, webslinging has a steep cost, and he didn’t want Peter to be pressured into it, even if the pressure was encouragement from well-intentioned friends. On the other hand, Peter _was_ making a difference, and if anyone deserved to know that, it was him.

He leaned back into his chair and played the video again, just because. “I can’t believe they didn’t tell us about this. They didn’t even ask to put it on the school blog or our news station.” In fairness, he wasn’t sure what he would’ve said in response.

David laughed. “Ned said the school shouldn’t get political.”

Either Ned had rapidly wised up on the issue of optics, or Hogan hadn’t been kidding about his experience with PR. Ken’s opinion of Hogan, Stark, and Stark Industries grudgingly rose another few notches. “You approve?”

“Damn straight. Spider-Man saved my daughter from being mugged.” David turned serious. “I’m not going to pretend I know what it entails. But if Spider-Man is willing to do it, I’m with him all the way. I’d be out there with a sandwich board but I’d get into hot water, and I have to keep the lights on. But kids? Kids can get away with it. Let them do it, if they want.”

Ken was reminded, rather uncomfortably, that they always seemed to be leaning on kids these days—their passion, their recklessness, their need to push for change.

Ned taking the fall. Spider-Man’s very existence.

Maybe they all needed to be braver. Maybe they were all worth saving.

David’s voice was rueful. “The world will be all right with kids like these.”

 

As heartening as Ned’s efforts were, Ken didn’t _really_ think they’d change things (not that he had any brilliant suggestions, either). The decathlon kids were Peter’s friends. Stark and Hogan were Peter’s…associates. Peter could reasonably assume some amount of bias on their parts, and the other kids’ participation could have been influenced by the collective power of Stark’s fame and Ned’s begging.

It wasn’t that Stark’s fame and Ned’s begging invalidated their point, but he could see Peter struggling with the message, given the source.

He needn’t have worried.

Three days after Ned’s video launched, Janet poked her head into his office. “Oh my god, did you see?”

“See what?” As if cued, his desk phone rang, David’s name flashing on the caller ID. Ken shot Janet an apologetic look as he picked up, “hello?”

“Jeez, Ken,” David sounded a little breathless. In the doorway, Janet was pointing frantically at Ken’s computer. “Look at the news. Look at it right now.”

“Um.” Ken switched over to Google News. “What is going—” the words faltered in his throat, “—on—?”

A flurry of news outlets had launched pieces on Spider-Man within minutes of each other. Ken randomly picked one three entries down, titled _SPIDER-FEVER SWEEPS NEW YORK_. It wasn’t a montage this time, but a live-stream of an actual news program.

Ken turned up the speakers.

“—has seen an increased surge in popularity ever since Stark Industries’ video launched. Spider-fever is indeed sweeping New York.” The two newscasters were clearly enjoying themselves, eyes sparkling.

“Absolutely, Alicia. I think New York has forgotten about how many ways Spider-Man has been pitching in. We’ve been getting incredible feedback from our viewers. I’ll read some excerpts from emails and comments we’ve received.” The man adjusted his too-large glasses. “‘Spider-Man brought back my daughter’s teddy bear when I left it in the taxi. It took him three hours, but he did it. I don’t even know how he tracked down that exact car in a sea of taxis.’ Wow, that’s commitment.”

Alicia picked up another cue card. “‘I accidentally ran a red. Nearly got t-boned by a truck. He webbed my car to the traffic light behind me. I broke the light, ruined the car, but I walked away.’”

“‘He called 911 for me when I hit my head.  I’ve been in trouble with cops a few times, so I didn’t want to call. He called anyway, and stayed with me the entire time. Thank you, Spider-Man, for believing, until I could, until I did.’”

Alicia set down her cue cards. “Spider-Man’s absence has been felt. The question is, where is Spider-Man? Is he on vacation? Is he hurt? Is he upset over the recent spat of bad press?”

“Wholly unjustified bad press,” her co-anchor added. “I think it’s safe to say that New York, especially Queens, misses their friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. We hope he’s okay. We miss you, Spider-Man.”

Ken muted the stream and looked up at Janet’s grinning face. He reached for his neglected cell. The lock screen showed a blizzard of similar notifications from his feed. New York Bulletin. The Guardian. The Daily Globe, the Pulse, New York Star, the Daily Herald…

His cell buzzed with a text from Hogan: _we had nothing to do with this one._

“Hot damn,” Ken said faintly.

“Isn’t it something?” David sounded like a kid at Christmas. Ken’d forgotten that David was still on the line.

“It’s something, all right. Something amazing.” The media machine lived up to its reputation. Maybe that had been Ned, Stark, and Hogan’s plan all along.

Ken clicked to another article. And another. And another. The non-Bugle news outlets were all jumping on the Stark Industries bandwagon. Some would call them puff pieces, but they made a difference, each and every one. They _mattered_.

“Ned started a _movement_ ,” Janet said, sounding a little awed.

A revolution, even. “David, if you talk to Ned any time soon, tell him we said well done.”

David laughed. “Planning on it.” He hung up.

“Think we should congratulate the other kids too?” Janet asked. “They helped.”

“Technically we shouldn’t expose our political biases. Ned’s an exception, this was part of his internship.” Ken cracked a grin. “But I can definitely see a case for extra credit if any of them are taking Marketing or Media Studies.”

Janet’s eyes gleamed. “I’ll check.” She swept out of the office, long hair bouncing.

Ken watched Ned’s video again, just because. Then he unmuted the news stream and went back to reading HR’s offer letter to Harlan Stillwell. The newscasters’ voices droned softly in the background, a comforting backdrop to his keyboard clacks.

“Next up, we have Cecilia Santos, associate professor of criminology at Empire State University, giving her analysis on the difference Spider-Man has made in New York’s crime rates…”

 

Within days, those additional articles and videos also went viral, if nowhere near Ned’s original video in popularity. Ken supposed a montage of Spider-Man’s awesome moments was more enjoyable to watch than crime analysts opining about statistics (experts disagreed on the specifics, but the ones Ken remembered were 10-13% reduction in robberies, 27-31% reduction in petit larceny, and 17-22% reduction in misdemeanor assault). Everywhere he went, he could see students watching Ned’s video or reading one of the news articles on their phones or tablets. The sounds from the videos became a soundtrack to his life, much like the din of teenagers.

Ned modified his webpage. In addition to his original video, there were also a strip of photos beneath it, capturing moments of Spider-Man in action and regular citizens cheering him on. Spider-Man catching a falling cat. Spider-Man bringing back an errant football. Flash driving another car (when had he paid the previous one off?) bedecked in Spider-Man merchandise. Michelle grudgingly handing out Spider-Man sketches to elementary school kids (Ken suspected Jason had snuck the shot when Michelle wasn’t looking). Ken didn’t even need David’s daily reports to know: Spider-Man was the hottest topic on social media.

It seemed like everybody, adult or child, was sporting something Spider-Man related at school nowadays, unregistered status be damned. Stickers on laptops and tablets. Spider-themed jewellery. Someone replaced all the rubber ducks in the computer labs with rubber spiders until the arachnophobic complaints rolled in (the ducks returned, though a few spiders lingered, painted red and blue by the art students). Ken amused himself by picturing Iron Man dropping off bags of Spider-Man merchandise a la Santa Claus.

With all this ruckus, Ken had entirely forgotten that Peter would be coming back to school soon. In fact, he’d forgotten so thoroughly that he didn’t realize Peter was back in school until he ran into Peter and Michelle huddled together in the hallway, their eyes fixed on Michelle’s phone.

“Peter,” Ken said, surprised. “I didn’t realize—I mean, welcome back.”

Peter looked up. He looked much better than before, colour back in his face, his head no longer seeming too big for his neck. It was a relief. “Oh, hello, Mr Morita. Um, thanks.”

Ken glanced at the shared phone. “You’re watching the Spider-Man stuff?” He wouldn’t quite call it self-serving—Peter wasn’t the type—but it had to be bizarre.

Peter flushed a little. “Um, yeah. I’m…catching up. I mean, I watched some when I was away, but…” he trailed off with a helpless shrug, ears pink.

“You know,” Michelle drawled loftily, “we should just put it on the school TVs. The entire school is already watching it all day, every day.”

Ken raised an eyebrow. “The school can’t endorse an unregistered vigilante, at least not openly.”

Michelle scowled. “But we can have Captain America PSAs?”

Ken smiled wryly. “Technically those were signed off by the school board, and they haven’t ordered me to remove them yet. They also haven’t given me replacements. But, off the record, just between you and me?” He kept his eyes on Michelle, but he knew Peter was listening to every word. “I’m with you.”

For the first time in five weeks, he saw Peter smile.

 

He’d been heading back to his office, his mind on the school assembly next week, when his phone buzzed in his pocket. Ken fished it out to see a cascade of notifications from his news feed lighting up his screen. They were all variations upon the same: _breaking news—wall collapse at construction site in Queens—_

Ken was so absorbed in his phone he didn’t see the the blur until they were on top of each other—literally. “ _Shit—_ ”

“Ahhh!” A too-familiar voice yelped. The blur twisted aside at the last second with inhuman grace, freezing to a stop just to Ken’s left.

Ken blinked stupidly at the boy, heart thudding in his chest. “Peter?”

Peter blinked back at him. “Mr Morita?” He looked down at his hands, as if he just realized he’d caught the phone Ken had dropped. “Oh. Um, here.”

“Thank you.” He really didn’t want to test the impact-resistance of a Starkphone, or ask Hogan for a new one.

“Sorry.” Peter had his backpack slung over one shoulder, looking for all the world like he was heading off-campus for lunch. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“Neither was I.” Ken kept his gaze fixed carefully on Peter’s face.

Peter shifted furtively in place, unsettled by the scrutiny. One hand clasped tight around the strap of his backpack. He bounced slightly on the balls of his feet, like he wanted to escape but didn’t dare.

Silence.

Ken raised his gaze to stare down the hall, eyes fixed on a spot beyond Peter’s left shoulder. He kept his voice very quiet. “Take the east exit beside the gym, past the annex, and through the loading dock. You’ll miss most of the cameras.”

Peter _stared_.

Ken looked back down at the boy, mouth quirking ruefully. “Be careful.”

There was a full ten seconds of perfect, shocked silence. Then Peter grinned, bright and clear and shining, something brilliant and fierce in his eyes. “Thanks.” There was a world of determination and hope in just that one word.

A breath, two, then Peter whirled around and sprinted off. Ken watched him go, lead in his stomach and light in his chest.

_The world will be all right with kids like these._

The echo of footsteps sounded a little like faith, and maybe peace looked something like this.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as always to Imbecamiel and Nyxelestia for being amazing.
> 
> I wanted to give Peter something more than just a pep talk, and I think knowing that he is making a difference would ultimately bring Peter back, even if it hurts. Also, for the record, gaming search engines as described is possible, just very difficult as the algorithms involved are closely guarded secrets. But theoretically, hijacking-without-hacking is doable.
> 
> Brownie points for anyone who caught the Harlan Stillwell reference! ;) For those who didn’t: in the comics, Harlan Stillwell is a scientist and the brother of Farley Stillwell. Farley Stillwell created Scorpion (Mac Gargan). Seeing as Mac Gargan is MCU canon, well…if I ever get over my terror of multi-chaptered fic I might write a sequel involving Stillwell as the new department head and Gargan’s infiltration of the school. The story would likely not be from Ken’s POV, but I think he’s gotten a fair run here.
> 
> I have a [Tumblr](http://overzelos.tumblr.com) if anyone wants to say hello. Thanks for coming along on this ride with me, y’all.


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